And more Saori

I have a long wide prewound black wool warp on my Saori loom.

This wrap was woven with 2 ply black Bendigo wool weft, with lozenges of coloured fleece inserted randomly.

A Jacket/cape. 

I wove a 5 metre length of fabric on the black wool warp. In the weft I used handspun wool and silk yarns, as well as commercial wool, mohair and silk yarns

I was nervous about cutting the piece to make it up, but am very pleased with how it looks. It is a one size fits all garment, and fits me as well as my elegant size 10-12 daughter in law, Kristen.

More fun with Saori and other weaving

I am having such a great time at the moment playing on my looms:

Another couple of long wall hangings

The centre pic is the upper detail of the hanging on the left.
Both hangings are about 170 cm long. Done with a silk warp, and the weft includes wool, silk, cotton, leather and plant materials.






Both these scarves are woven on a black silk warp.

The scarf on the left has a polyester and wool chunky weft.

The one on the right is hand dyed silk

 This bead leno woven wrap has a handspun wool warp, and a hand-dyed silk weft. It drapes beautifully

The purple chenille cowl on the left turned out a bit brighter than I planned. Still need to practice more with dyeing cotton!

The table runner on the right was woven with handspun wool, painted both in the warp and the weft. And a few palm flower stalks added for effect.

Saori

Six weavers from Morisset Spinners and Weavers went to a two day workshop run by Kaz Madigan, - curiousweaver,id.au. What fun we had. Kaz was an inspiring teacher, and shared so much knowledge and encouraged our creativity. I was so impressed with the ease of using the Saori loom, that I bought one! Now all my spare time is spent playing on it, creating fun items.

Long and skinny hangings

 I went to a workshop run by Liz Williamson. Lots of experimental stuff I had mostly done before, but when I finished, the long skinny piece came together as a hanging. So then I did another one, just because it was fun!

Overdyeing

Overdyeing
These two scarves were almost identical. But I was disappointed that the hand-painted warp did not feature at all in the finished scarves. So I overdyed one of them with turquoise. I thought it would give purple effects on the red, but instead, gave a range of colours.

keeping busy in 2014

 In July I went with members of our spinning and weaving group to the Bendigo Sheep and Wool Show. We had a great time adding new fibres to our stashes. Above are a couple of scarves I wove, using the same warp, and then added a green wool as the weft to the one on the  left, while the one on the right has the same wool as the warp. Amazing how different they are.

 Above: Some of the stash I acquired on the Bendigo trip. Now I just have to find the time to weave it all.

 We did a huck lace workshop with Liz Calnan in June. The scarf above I did at the workshop, using a fine silk. Then later I did two more huck laces scarves in laceweight yarn, 90% fine merino, 10% bamboo. I dyed the warp and weft slightly different colours, with tea, to make the pattern stand out a bit more.

 This 3 1/2 metre piece was fun to do. I painted various lengths of yarn in different colours. Blues, greens, and a bit of mauve.This was used as the warp and as many elements in the weft. Then I added lots of different yarns to the weft as well - mohair, novelty yarns, sari silk, whatever I could find that fitted. I entered this in the Bendigo show. Although it didn't win a prize, it got a good score, and looked great hanging in the showcase. Now I have to decided what I am going to do with it!

 I acquired a lot of cotton chenille. Had fun dyeing it - above. Then wove the cowl below. 

Still a lot more chenille to work with later.

 The scarf above is woven from a mix of commercial and handwoven yarns.

The pink one below is silk, woven with a huck lace pattern

 The wrap above was woven using up leftovers from my stash. I multicolour dyed some yarn to include in the warp, and added lots of novelty yarns and yarns of different thicknesses. Then I used a fine warp yarn to let the weft yarns stand out.

This scarf was again woven with thick and thin warp yarns, many hand dyed.

The cowls above and below were arm knitted using novelty yarns and plain wool. 

They look great on and are comfy to wear.

I haven't given up beading. I made this bracelet for my daughter for her birthday

Beading fun

Since one of the women in our weaving group introduced me to beading, I have been having a great time playing around with beads. Because of my knee, I am not very active at the moment, so I can sit back in my chair and thread beads in all sorts of styles. There were some more, but I gave them away before I photographed them.

One pattern, three wraps

The first one - I am keeping it for myself!

The second one - requested by one of  my weaving friends. And I had a lot of dyed wool left over from the first one

My favourite. Dyed in bright sunny colours for my daughter for Christmas.

These three wraps all have handspun and hand dyed warps. It took quite a while to work out what colours I wanted, and where they should go in relation to others. But I think they worked well.